Crossing Lines, Crossing Magic
by GhostHelwig
Summary: An innocent prince, his inept guard, magic gone horribly wrong, and characters from Saiyuki, Demon Diary, Yami no Matsuei, Gravitation, and Fruits Basket... May contain slash references later on.


Disclaimer – I do not own or profit from Saiyuki, Demon Diary, Descendants of Darkness (Yami no Matsuei), Gravitation, or Fruits Basket. If I did... huh. I'd be _really_ busy. ('lol')

Rated T for slash references (I know I'll write 'em in even if I haven't yet 'lol') and slight violence – not to mention a few foul mouths. (I'm looking at _you_, Saiyuki boys. 'lol') Rating may or may not be changed depending on how the story goes.

**_Important_** – I _do_ own Wood, Ghost, Andrea, Huck, and any/all other original characters within or mentioned in this story. Darthelwig is the _only_ person who owns them with me. If I see them reproduced _anywhere_ in _any_ form _without my permission_, I'll do something unmentionable to you. It will probably involve metal stakes, superglue, and a camera.

Here's a list of characters that can be found within this story (though not all in this chapter). I reserve the right to add or remove from this list as I see fit. Just a warning.

**Saiyuki**

Sanzo

Goku

Hakkai

Gojyo

Hakuryu

Kougaiji

Ni

**Demon Diary**

Raenef

Eclipse

Chris

Erutis

**Descendants of Darkness (Yami no Matsuei)**

Tsuzuki

Hisoka

Muraki

**Gravitation**

Yuki

Shuichi

Ryuichi

Hiro

**Fruits Basket**

Yuki

Kyo

Tohru

Momiji

Haru

As of right now, that's everyone. As of right _now_. ('lol')

Anyway, enjoy. Peace, all.

--00--

**Crossing Lines, Crossing Magic**

_by Ghost Helwig_

--00--

In the end, it really was all Wood's fault.

Ghost was attempting to teach him teleportation magic; Ghost was an optimist. These two things were very much intertwined that day.

We'd join the two boys at around the time everything began to go wrong, only most believe it all went wrong the day Wood was born. Others argue that it was the day Wood befriended Ghost, who was too nice to not trust Wood with everything – but as those two days aren't far apart (one need only wait until the day of Ghost's birth a few months later), there's no point in splitting hairs. To tell their story from that day forward would take too long, and by the time we caught up to where Wood and Ghost are now they'd be on to new adventures – such is the life of a wise but too trusting prince and his faithful guard-cum-sidekick with a brain made of moss.

So instead we shall begin this narrative, not at the point where it all began to go wrong _that day_ (_everyone_ agrees that was the instant Wood asked, "Can you teach me teleportation magic?" and Ghost replied readily, "Sure!"), but when the badness began to actually take form – namely, when Wood decided he'd had enough of listening to Ghost's instructions and was ready to try the spell.

Ghost tried to stop him. Ghost's luck sucked. These two things were also very intertwined that day.

So when Wood focused his energy and _wished_, Ghost's hoarse cry of "_no_, Wood! Not _yet_!" went completely unheeded and, indeed, almost unheard.

A bright golden light spread from Wood's fingers and slowly began to encompass the room. Wood's brilliant grin soon turned to a somewhat nervous twitch in his lips, while Ghost stood back and put his head in his hands. Oh, his father was going to kill them. The last time Wood had screwed up with his magic, he'd turned everyone in the castle (thankfully except for him and Ghost, who were too close to the spell, and Ghost's father, who was too powerful to be affected) into unicorns. Pretty, to be sure, but hardly what any of them wanted to be. And his father had been red in the face when he came storming into the unused second throne room where they always practiced – his messy clothing only added to the suspicion that his father had been interrupted while doing something with his other father and his mother that one did _not_ want to do with a unicorn...

But Ghost didn't want to think about that. And really, he didn't have the _time_ to – not when _forms_ were beginning to coalesce in the golden light now completely filling the room.

Oh, what had Wood done _now_?

As Ghost caught a glimpse of one straight, slender nose and the flash of a pale shoulder, he closed his eyes briefly and resisted the urge to put his head in his hands once more. Wood had teleported _people_ here. Into the _castle_.

Well, it could be _worse_, Ghost supposed. If they were just some scared, confused villagers, he could explain everything to them and sort it all out rather quickly, maybe get them home in time to think of a gentle way of breaking news of this latest mishap to his father...

And then, he heard a completely unfamiliar _bang_.

His eyes snapped open.

The world was in chaos.

--00--

There certainly were a lot of people in the throne room all of a sudden. Wood hadn't meant to do that at all. He'd been trying to bring both Ghost and himself out to the lake, but he'd gotten distracted, thinking of Ghost's pretty cousin Andrea who should be arriving for a visit any day now, and how last time she'd been there, she'd deigned to smile at his lowly, guardsman self when she saw him walking with Ghost beside said lake...

And then he'd fallen in, taking a surprised Ghost with him, but that was not the point here.

He thought maybe Ghost had told him not to get distracted. He couldn't really remember. He hadn't been listening.

Ghost's voice was too lyrical; with how soft he spoke, listening to him talk was like listening to a lullaby. Sung by mermaids. He'd heard mermaids sang sweetly. But wasn't that dangerous – weren't mermaids the ones who lured intrepid sailors to their doom? He couldn't remember. He didn't listen when his mom spoke, either.

He could ask Ghost. But maybe not right now. Right now he was distracted by the strange blond – man? woman? a quick up-down glance revealed no breasts, even under the voluptuous robes; must be a man (and what was with all the blond men he knew being so easily confused with women?) – waving some strange gray cylinder around...

That weird gray thing made a loud noise, and even though Wood couldn't see that the noise had _done_ anything but scare over half the noisy crowd into silence and make the gray thing smoke a little, he moved closer to Ghost. He had to protect his best friend; that much was clear, had been clear to him his whole life.

Even if he had _no frickin' **clue**_ what he was protecting Ghost _from_.

--00--

_A weapon_._ That _thing_ – I don't know what it is, but it's obviously a weapon of some sort_.

Catching a look of fear on the face of one of the only girls in the entire room, Ghost thought wildly, she _knows. She knows what that weapon is. It _frightens_ her. But what _is_ it? I've been schooled in every known history and culture - where could these people _possibly_ be from, that I recognize neither their attire nor their weaponry?_

Nor their languages – before the noise had silenced the majority of the room, he heard at least four different dialects in a wide range of accents, none of which were even remotely familiar to him. But _that_, at least, was fixable. If he could just get everyone to look at him...

He stepped around Wood, who'd hurried in front of him after that bang had resounded throughout the room, and waved his arms over his head, hoping to call the attention of the crowd-

It worked. They began yelling at him, now. And their minds were crying out for an explanation as well, he could _feel_ that even if their words were meaningless, but that one blond man was staring at him and he knew if he didn't fix this soon that unknown weapon would be used on _him_, and then what would they do? Would it hurt? From the _look_ that man was giving him, he _wanted_ it to hurt, and hurt _badly_...

A whispered word, and a spell of Universal Understanding was cast over the room. He could have spread it over the people themselves, had even been _intending_ to, so as to give them freedom of movement should they prove trustworthy enough for the autonomy to walk unattended through the castle (that he had no doubts that they _would_ proved yet again that Ghost was an optimist 'til the end), but that took longer and he suspected he was quickly running out of time...

That blond man sure could put a lot of feeling into a glare.

Now it should be noted, Ghost was no good at public speaking. He considered himself very, very lucky if it caused him to go just a tiny, tiny bit catatonic. So being put on display like this, by virtue of being on the dais in the throne room and obviously looking like he had some sort of _clue_ what was going on, was unnerving, to say the least. Usually situations like this involved him getting laughed at (hence his phobia). Now it looked like he might be attacked.

And thus his love of public speaking was 'increased' (if by 'increased', one means slaughtered by rampaging minotaurs).

"Um," he began – a sparkling beginning, for him. "Hi."

Someone coughed. No one was speaking now, just looking at him. He felt a little faint.

But he could not afford to faint, because if he fainted Wood would try to take over and being _Wood_ that meant things would go terribly, terribly wrong and he'd wake up dead if indeed one could wake up in such a state-

The blond man did something strange that made his weapon _click_ as he leveled it at Ghost, who squeaked in a very un-princelike manner and immediately started to talk again, if just to calm his own nerves.

"I bet you're all wondering what you're doing here-"

"Yeah, no shit," a redhead standing near the blond muttered just loudly enough to be heard by _everyone_, and Ghost's entire face flushed bright pink. He hated, _hated, **hated**_ this.

"My companion and I," he continued, undaunted, and taking the blame with Wood as always (really, he figured he deserved it, for not stopping Wood, and for thinking he could teach him), "had sort of an... an _accident_, when trying to use our magic. But I assure you, as soon as we figure out how best to do it, we'll get all of you back to wherever you're from-"

"How long will that take?" Standing over by the leering redhead, a man with an unruly mop of dark hair smiled at him, kindly but with absolutely no emotion behind it. It was creepier than the blonde's weird gray weapon.

"I – I don't know," he said, flushing darker. His attention was abruptly caught by a tall man with long dark hair near the back of the room, whose hand had begun to glow dangerously. The feeling that he might faint grew worse.

"Explain something to me, mortal," the man said in a clear, carrying voice. "How is it that you managed to block me from using my magic to return to my domain?"

The whole room erupted at that, and amid the chaos Ghost realized one thing – he had to explain before any other magic-wielders decided to try any spells, lest some backfire-

"Silence!"

Yeah, that worked. In a not-really sorta way. Even with all the frantic talking, he heard a soft voice saying, "so _that's_ what it looks like when I get all huffy. Heh, it _is_ kinda funny." Across the room, amused but somehow still sympathetic green eyes met his, and he found his lips opening again, desperate to deliver a warning before anything bad could occur.

"This room is warded!" he cried, earning himself some reproachful looks. But gradually, the crowd quieted to hear what he had to say, and he was grateful for that. He was completely unused to yelling.

"This place – it's guarded from without. No magic leaves here or enters once the ward has been activated. Which happened the instant unknown users of magic or those carrying weapons entered. It's a safeguard against assassins who might try to harm the ki-" He stopped, not wanting to even mention his father, and soldiered on only after a patently disbelieving look from various members of the increasingly aggravated crowd.

"I can grant you use of your powers within this room," he said with only a hint of reluctance – if his father knew how sublimely trusting he was in a time of such unknown danger, he would lock him up for his own protection, "but I cannot unlock the rest of the ward. Nor can I allow you to leave this room."

From the redhead again: "Why the hell-"

Before he could answer, the blond did it for him. "Because he can't trust us, idiot."

"No one _asked_ you, you dirty monk!"

"There's a monk here?" asked a teenager standing in the back by the long-haired man, who still studied Ghost with searching, purple eyes. The teen shouted over the heads of the others, "are you a follower of Rased?"

At the same time, off to the left, an excitable brunette looked up from the bunny he was carrying and asked no one in particular, "Tatsuha's here? Where?" and bounced on the balls of his feet.

Meanwhile, the blond – _a monk?__ Really? They must not be holy men where he's from_ - was glaring at the redhead, who was obviously a companion of his, while the man with the false smile tried to mollify him. It didn't appear to be going well.

Taking advantage of the brief distraction, Ghost spoke to Wood quietly over his shoulder, without even looking at him. "Go. Use the hidden door behind the throne. Return with my father."

Wood wasted no time arguing. He grasped Ghost's shoulder gently, gave it a little squeeze, muttered "reinforce your personal shields," and then was gone. Ghost breathed a sigh of relief.

--00--

...Which was, as it turned out, totally premature.

Once out of the castle – the hidden passageway behind the throne emptied out in a cave close to the pastures, far from the castle itself – Wood decided it would be quicker to teleport to Huck's side than to run there.

So for the second time that day, he _wished_ with all his heart and his magic to be elsewhere.

Needless to say, it did not go well.

---_END PART THE FIRST_---


End file.
